Learn Heritage Crafts from home....

We are super excited to announce we’ve been accepted by The National Lottery Community Fund to help us set up a heritage Craft Skills from home course.

We know that people suffer with their mental and physical health when they are isolated at home, so whether we get locked down again with more COVID-19 regulations, or people who are isolated due to physical disability or age we’d like to connect those most disadvantaged to our heritage crafts and support our local crafts people at the same time.

People who sign up for the course will be able to purchase a materials pack, with the 1st 10 people from disadvantaged groups will receive one free of charge.

Once the course starts participants will join a Facebook group and will receive an email 5 days per week with a 20-30 minute craft demonstration, each day of the week will be a different craft… Woodwork, Ceramics, Metalwork, Textiles, Leatherwork.

Each day, after the session the craftsperson will be available for 1 hour live in the Facebook group for q&a and participants will be encouraged to share their work and connect with each other.

The first cohort will be fully funded for professionally designing, and filming the course, and paying all the craftspeople for their time. As part of this we will be promoting our Made in The Forest of Dean logo to promote people supporting the local economy.

We will evaluate the results and look at what income can be made to roll out the course again once every 4-6 months, paying the craftspeople to interact with each cohort as we will have an income from sales of the course, or the materials bundle.

We will start talking to our local craftspeople soon about their involvement, and look to design and film the course over the summer to roll out later in the year - depending on what other projects we are running too.

Watch this space….